State v. Wargin
| Decision Date | 08 September 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 82-368,82-368 |
| Citation | 418 So.2d 1261 |
| Parties | STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Donald WARGIN, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Max Rudmann, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, for appellant.
Norman F. O'Rourke, Fort Lauderdale, for appellee.
The State of Florida appeals an order granting Donald Wargin's motion to suppress a quantity of cocaine seized during an airport encounter stop and subsequent consensual search of his luggage.
At the Fort Lauderdale Airport, two plainclothes Broward County deputy sheriffs approached the appellee after his actions in the airport terminal fit a drug courier profile. 1 The police officers identified themselves, explained that they were narcotic agents working with the cooperation of the public, and asked the appellee to permit them to inspect his carry on luggage. He consented. Appellee went into a closed room with the officers and unlocked his suitcase. One of the officers lifted a strangely heavy Kleenex box out of the suitcase. The officer later opened the Kleenex box and found a plastic bag containing approximately two pounds of cocaine. The State charged appellee by information with possession of over 400 grams of cocaine with intent to sell or deliver. Appellee moved to suppress the cocaine found in the Kleenex box on the grounds that he had never been informed of his right to refuse to consent to the search and that the police officers told him that he must consent to the search.
The trial court granted appellee's motion to suppress the cocaine. The court found appellee had freely and voluntarily consented to the search of his luggage after a police encounter stop. The trial court also found that the excessively heavy Kleenex box gave the police a well-founded suspicion that the box contained something other than Kleenex. The trial court concluded, however, that appellee had a right of privacy in the closed and sealed Kleenex box, requiring the police to obtain additional consent before opening it. This failure to request further consent to open containers within the suitcase constituted the basis for the suppression of the cocaine.
The State contends that once the appellee consented to the search of his suitcase for narcotics that such consent extended to any container within the suitcase which might reasonably contain narcotics. We agree and reverse the order of suppression.
The trial court relied on three United States Supreme Court cases in granting the order of suppression, Robbins v. California, 453 U.S. 420, 101 S.Ct. 2841, 69 L.Ed.2d 744 (1981); Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753, 99 S.Ct. 2586, 61 L.Ed.2d 235 (1979); and United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 53 L.Ed.2d 538 (1979). This trilogy of cases limited the scope of probable cause searches of closed containers. The trial court did not have the benefit of the United States Supreme Court's recent decision United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 102 S.Ct. 2157, 72 L.Ed.2d 572 (1982), which overruled Robbins, modified Sanders, extended Chadwick and redefined the permissible scope of searches which reveal closed containers as follows:
A lawful search of fixed premises generally extends to the entire area in which the object of the search may be found and is not limited by the possibility that separate acts of entry or opening may be required...
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State v. Fuksman
...next inquiry is whether the consent to search the car extended to the locked briefcase within the car. The state cites State v. Wargin, 418 So.2d 1261 (Fla. 4th DCA 1982) as authority for its contention that the consent encompassed the briefcase. In Wargin, the fourth district decided, in a......
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State v. Reagan
...3 W. LaFave, supra, § 8.1(c), pp. 172-73; by some verbal or physical act indicating that the consent has been withdrawn. State v. Wargin, 418 So.2d 1261, 1263 (Fla.1982). Acker testified that, upon reaching the "foyer" at the top of the stairs, the defendant's wife "positioned herself where......
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State v. Wells
...We have for review Wells v. State, 492 So.2d 1375 (Fla. 5th DCA 1986), based on express and direct conflict with State v. Wargin, 418 So.2d 1261 (Fla. 4th DCA 1982). We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const. We approve in part and quash in part the decision of the district court ......
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State v. Cross, 86-2589
...to rely on Palmer the majority is actually enlarging Palmer, which specifically rejected the broad conclusion in State v. Wargin, 418 So.2d 1261 (Fla.4th DCA 1982) that "consent to search luggage includes the authority to search closed containers within the luggage which may conceal the obj......